The invention provides an apparatus and method for removing contaminates and living marine life from a marine vessel intake port while the vessel remains in the water and without the need to access the intake port from its inlet side. In particular, the invention provides a plunger element supported to be movable within an intake port to mechanically scrape debris from its internal walls when needed. The plunger element may be configured to be pushed through the intake port by hand, from inside the vessel, or to be pushed through the intake port by a powered mechanism.
Marine vessels use water to cool engines and for other purposes. The water is drawn into the vessel through intake ports, located below the vessel waterline, and pumped to various locations through out the vessel. Marine inboard engines may be cooled by water drawn onboard through submerged intake ports by pumps. The water may be pumped through heat exchange elements or various passages inside a marine engine to cool the engine, and then be discharged overboard through an output port. Marine outboard motors may also be cooled by water drawn into the motor through submerged intake ports by pumps. The water may be pumped through various passages inside the outboard motor to cool the motor and then be discharged overboard through outlet ports.
A typical marine engine or motor cooling system may include one or more submerged intake ports, various conduits for carrying the water to the areas of the engine or motor that need to be cooled, a heat exchange element or area for transferring thermal energy from the engine or motor to the circulating water, various conduits leading away from the heat exchange element or area and one or more exit ports for discharging the water from the vessel or outboard motor. The engine cooling system may also include various controls and feedback elements to circulate cooling water continuously or to circulate the water only when the engine needs to be cooled. Similar systems may also be used to cool other marine equipment, e.g. power generators that may need to be cooled.
It is a long standing problem that marine vessel water intake ports may draw unwanted debris into the cooling system and the unwanted debris may partially or completely block the intake of water. In addition, in salt water vessels, the cooling system may become contaminated with salt which contributes to pump wear and corrosion. Accordingly, marine cooling systems often require periodic cleaning to remove loose and lodged debris contained therein. The cleaning may be performed by flushing out the entire cooling system with fresh clean water, such as when the vessel is docked. For this reason, many marine water cooling systems are provided with a separate clean water intake port used to receive fresh clean water therein from a water supply. The clean water may be flushed through the cleaning system to remove unwanted debris. However, in many instances, flushing a marine cooling system with fresh clean water does not provide complete cleaning and further mechanical cleaning action may be required.
To keep engine cooling systems from sucking up unwanted debris, it is know to provide a course screen or other filter element over the water inlet side of the intake port. A course screen/filter element serves to prevent large debris such as sea weed or floating trash from being drawn in through the intake port. However, the screen/filter element does not prevent small contaminates from being drawn in to the cooling system and these small contaminates may include minute marine organisms such as tiny barnacles, mussels and other mollusks in the early stages of their life. These minute marine animals attach themselves to the walls of the various fluid conduits and heat exchange elements of the cooling systems and often remain there, growing larger over time. Eventually, live marine organisms grow large enough to begin to decrease the diameter of the conduits. Moreover, new marine organisms entering the cooling system attach to the other marine organisms already attached to the conduit walls to further reduce the diameter of the conduits. The resulting decrease in conduit diameter restricts the volume of water passing through the conduits thereby reducing engine cooling capacity. Ultimately, if left untreated the restricted flow leads to overheating in the engines.
In general, the problem of marine growth restricting water flow only occurs in the cooler areas of the marine cooling system since marine organism can not survive inside areas of the cooling system that are routinely heated to temperatures in excess of about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Therefore the problem of continuous growth of marine organisms in a marine cooling system tends to be restricted to the intake port where the water always remains cool. However, in some instances the water exiting the vessel may have cooled enough by the time it reaches the exit port that continuous growth of marine organisms in an outlet port may also occur.
Until now, removing marine growth from vessel intake and exits ports has meant sending a diver into the water to mechanically scrap the fouled intake and exit ports clean, or pulling the vessel out of the water to scrape the fouled ports. In either case, the ports are cleaned from outside the vessel hull. In many small marine crafts these ports must be cleaned at least once per season and depending on local marine condition more than twice per season. There is a need in the art to provide an improved cleaning device and method for cleaning submerged water ports in marine vessels.